(20) INDOCHINA WARS / VIETNAM WAR

(1940-1979)

 

“In Indochina, a nativist political movement rose up to oppose the resumption of French colonial rule; one of the factions that struggled for supremacy was the Communist Viet Minh led by Ho Chi Minh.”

You knew this one was coming – the iconic twentieth century war after 1945 and second only to the Second World War itself as visual image in popular culture or imagination, and as metaphor or archetype in history or politics.

Of course, it serves as the counterpoint to the Second World War in those things, particularly in moral terms, highlighted by the defeat of the United States and its allies in Vietnam, with the diminished number of its allies as further counterpoint to the Second World War.

It also serves as counterpoint in its nature, both as a limited war and as insurgency or guerilla warfare, contrasting with the Second World War as both unlimited and as more straightforward conventional warfare. Indeed, a common criticism of American military proficiency or strategy in the Vietnam War is that it essentially sought to fight an unconventional war by conventional means more suited to the Second World War and hence entirely misplaced in the Vietnam War, resulting or at least contributing to defeat.

Few things encapsulate the unconventional Vietnam War wrongly fought by conventional Second World War strategy in popular culture or imagination more than American bombing during the war, usually seen as futilely dropping bombs on jungle.

In popular culture or imagination, the Vietnam War is typically that involving the United States in varying levels of engagement from about 1954, with the height of its military engagement from about 1965 to 1972. However, that war was actually the Second Indochina War, which followed almost directly from the First Indochina War from 1945 to 1954 against the French colonial regime – and the First Indochina War commenced immediately as the last shots were fired in the Second World War.

The First Indochina War in turn took shape in the Second World War itself. The Vietnamese resistance to French colonial rule predated the Second World War but took its definitive shape in that war – as the Vichy French colonial administration effectively had to concede control to Japanese occupation from 1940 onwards until Japan “had extended its control over the whole of French Indochina”.

Interestingly, the Japanese occupation and control of French Indochina was the trigger point for the United States to embargo Japan, which in turn led to war with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Interestingly that is, because it illuminates Vietnam as another American trigger point for the Cold War in Asia.

During the Pacific War, however, the United States placed little weight on French Indochina – with President Roosevelt even offering it to Chiang Kai-Shek. In fairness, this may have reflected the predominant role of China for Vietnamese resistance – “most of the Vietnamese resistance to Japan, France, or both, including both communist and non-communist groups, remained based over the border, in China”.

One exception was Ho Chi Minh and the underground communist resistance he led within Vietnam from 1941 onwards – gaining mass support from the effects of the 1945 Vietnamese famine on the populace.

In March 1945, the Japanese effectively sought to salt the earth of the remnants of the French colonial administration – which the Japanese revoked, imprisoning French administrators and taking full control of Indochina, nominally under Vietnamese emperor Bao Dai who proclaimed the Empire of Vietnam.

As Japan lurched to its surrender, the communists or Viet Minh under Ho Chi Minh launched firstly their August Revolution from Hanoi and secondly declared Vietnamese independence. The latter had little real effect as the Allies had agreed to China occupying north Vietnam while the British occupied the south.

The Viet Minh remained largely intact under Chinese occupation of the north – such that they were even able to purge non-communist nationalist resistance – but British occupation of the south was another matter. I always recall reading how the British, having accepted the surrendering Japanese garrisons laying down their arms, then immediately rearmed them to keep order in Vietnam – which essentially translated to keeping order for the return of French colonial rule.

However, the Vietnamese communist resistance under Ho Chi Minh came out swinging against the restoration of French colonial rule from the outset and the First Indochina War took shape, along similar north-south lines as the postwar occupation and the subsequent Second Indochina War with the United States, with the Third Indochina War against China in 1979 echoing the postwar Chinese occupation of northern Vietnam.

 

RATING: 4 STARS*****

X-TIER (WILD TIER)